Rinat Akhmetshin, the mysterious Russian-American who attended the June 2016 meeting at which Donald Trump Jr. arrived expecting dirt on Hillary Clinton from Moscow, seems to be a sideshow. But his handiwork — finding and, with diabolical precision, disseminating incriminating records — is a reminder of the important difference between Russian and American tactics in the new age of intelligent cyber-war.
The key takeaway: With its cyber strategy, the U.S. has been fixated on the potential for paralyzing attacks on critical infrastructure such as the electricity grid, and establishing international norms against them. But that left the U.S. blinkered when Russia, seeking strategic advantage, carried out an old-fashioned information roundhouse, tweaked for the cyber age with intelligent fake news bots.
A seasoned Republican operative told me that when you're working on a campaign and you get an email that says something like "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump," the response is obvious
"I'd stop reading right there," the operative said. "I'd print it out and walk it over to the counsel's office."
That's why so many Republicans downtown and on Capitol Hill have tried to avert their gaze from "the Russia stuff" by relying on the Keystone Cops Scenario — that this was all incompetence and inexperience: These guys just didn't know what they were doing, and were acting the way they do in business.
But the Keystone Cops Scenario fell apart yesterday. Don Jr. had told Fox's Sean Hannity on Tuesday, regarding the Russia meeting at Trump Tower: "This is everything. This is everything."
The Trump administration has a lot they want to get done this year, but time is running out. Congress has already blown through more than half of its scheduled legislative days and August just is around the corner, which Congress usually takes off. And September, which marks the end of the fiscal year, will be devoted to spending bills to keep the government up and running.
Why it matters: With Republican control of the White House, Congress and the Senate, expectations for Trump to follow through were high. But so far gridlock continues to delay his policy agenda.
